Acknowledgments
The principal part of the argument surrounding the different forms of land tenure and how and why they changed in colonial Australia, including Attorney-General v Brown and its implications for landed property rights, has been drawn, at times textually, from A.R. Buck, The Making of Australian Property Law (Federation Press, 2007). The same is true of Geoff Lindsay, ‘By Your Deeds Be Known: Episodes in Australian Legal History’, Francis Forbes Society for Australian Legal History: Australian Legal History Essay Competition, 2009, for the argument surrounding John Batman. The following memoirs have been drawn on in the second half: Lydia Gill, My Town: Sydney in the 1930s (State Library of NSW, 1993), and Sheila Hall, Yeumburra and the Hall Family: A Story of the Hall Family, Founders of a Bank, A Newspaper and a Fine Merino Stud (Bushell Press, 1979); as have the interviews appearing in Jacqueline Kent, In the Half Light: Life As a Child in Australia 1900–1970 (Angus and Robertson, 1988), and Wendy Lowenstein, Weevils in the Flour: An Oral Record of the 1930s Depression in Australia (Scribe, 1978).
The photograph of the boardroom at 48 Martin Place is reproduced courtesy of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. The frontispiece and the photograph superimposed on that of the boardroom have been provided by the Health and Safety Laboratory and are © Crown Copyright. The photograph of the bathroom appeared in the May 1927 issue of Australian Home Beautiful and was copied from Peter Timms’ Private Lives: Australians at Home Since Federation (Miegunyah Press, 2008).